Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 16, 2025
For an instant its fires flared and licked through the clinging blackness; it writhed half upright, threw itself forward, crashed down prostrate upon the enigmatic tablet which only its tentacles could manipulate. From Norhala's face the triumph fled. On its heels rushed stark, incredulous horror. The Mount of Cones shuddered.
I heard Norhala's golden laughter and before they could reach us arrow and javelin and boulder were checked as though myriads of hands reached out from the Thing under us and caught them. Down they dropped. Forth from the great spindle shot a gigantic arm, hammer tipped with cubes. It struck the wall close to where the scarlet armored Kulun had vanished. Under its blow the stones crumbled.
The Thing quieted; it began its steady, effortless striding through the crowding trees but now with none of that speed with which it had come, spurred forward by Norhala's awakened hate. Ventnor stirred; broke the silence. And now I saw how wasted was his body, how sharpened his face; almost ethereal; purged not only by suffering but by, it came to me, some strange knowledge.
I win, Norhala, even though you slay me. That is all that is now important." There was doubt upon Norhala's face and I caught a quick gleam of contemptuous triumph glint through the depths of the evil eyes. "Empty will be your victory over me, Norhala," he said; then waited. "What is your bargain?" she spoke hesitatingly; with a sinking of my heart I heard the doubt tremble in her throat.
Gone was the whirling wheel that had crowned it, but I knew this for the Grinding Thing from which we had fled; the questing block had been its scout. As though curious to know more of us, the Shape had sought us out through the mists, its messenger had caught us, delivered us to it. The pillar leaned over bent like that shining pillar that had bridged for us, at Norhala's commands, the abyss.
Up, up we were thrust three hundred feet, four hundred, five hundred. Over the blue globe of Norhala's house bent a gigantic leg. Spiderlike out from each side of the monster thrust half a score of others. Overhead the dawn began to break. Through it with ever increasing speed we moved, straight to the line of the cliffs behind which lay the city of the armored men and Ruth and Ventnor.
We passed a company of other Shapes which stood two by two and close together, their tops wide spinning wheels through which the tendrils of an opened globe fed translucent, colorless ingots the substance it seemed to me of which Norhala's shadowy walls were made, the crystal of which the bars that built out the base of the Cones were formed.
Above us, crouching against the blast of our going, streamed like a silken banner Norhala's hair, gemmed with the witch lights. We were far out now, the City far away. The cube slowed. Norhala threw high her head. From the arched, exquisite throat pealed a trumpet call golden, summoning, imperious. Thrice it rang forth and all the surrounding valley seemed to halt and listen.
There arose a prodigious wailing, an unearthly thin screaming. About the bases of the defenders flashed blinding bursts of incandescence like those which had heralded the flight of the Flying Thing dropping before Norhala's house. Unlike them they held no dazzling sapphire brilliancies; they were ochreous, suffused with raging vermilion.
"Norhala don't let them kill him. Don't let them hurt him any more. Please!" she sobbed. Beside me I heard Drake cursing. "If they touch her I'll kill the woman! I will, by God I will!" He strode to Norhala's side. "If you want to live, call off these devils of yours." His voice was strangled. She looked at him, wonder deepening on the tranquil brow, in the clear, untroubled gaze.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking